Nice update!! This was one of those things we really wanted. It should open up the creative process quite a bit.Might be used sporadically on a "normal" map as well as more frequently in special maps. Could be an interesting feature in assassin style games as well as escalating. My old "math" map would benefit greatly from this update. Will be interesting to see what ingenuity people will conjure up. Thanks lack!As for the future, sure we'd like more updates. And indeed the foundry needs more updates to continue this good trend, but let's not be so goal oriented that we don't stop to pay tribute to what without doubt is the best update CC has seen in years! Credit where credit is due .

AoG for President of the World!!I promise he will put George W. Bush to shame!

for some people this update was too little too late.it would be interesting to count the number of mapmakers/foundry regulars and do something about that.without bothering to count i'm thinking that the total is somewhere under 10-15 people. which is horrible because this means 2 things:1. maps take a longer time to produce. less people = less feedback = longer time to get consistent updates.2. any crap can get to beta as long as the map maker is persistent.

you need some significant changes not just conditional borders to get people interested in the foundry. and no, the map gallery won't be IT. the map gallery will be a novelty for about a month or so and then things will go back to normal.

lack successfully drove away a lot of mapmakers and it's time he did something to keep the ones he has and even bring some new ones. otherwise in a couple of years the only person in the foundry will be cairnswk.

“In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric, second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light, and it was good. And on the seventh day he rested.”- Michio Kaku

I think the sad thing is that these updates reflect almost exactly the requests and outcome of discussions I had with lackattack over 18 months ago. For me, right now, this is still too little, too late.

The code for conditional borders looks a bit off - predominantly because I don't think that it's explicity set that the name of territories and continents have to be different?

Secondly, there needs to be some clarification about how conditional borders and conditional bonuses work...Imagine a French Revolution map, where there was a condition required to be able to attack the Bastille. Holding French Revoutionaries would be required to build up a bonus (imagine there's 7 key leaders, which are coded to give a bonus for holding 3 or more). The condition is coded that you need to hold the Revolutionary Leaders to attack the Bastille. Do you need to hold all 7 of them to open the attack option, or any three of them?

PB: 2661 | He's blue...If he were green he would die | No mod would be stupid enough to do that

MrBenn wrote:The code for conditional borders looks a bit off - predominantly because I don't think that it's explicity set that the name of territories and continents have to be different?

I forgot to write this into the announcement:

You must then hold that territory/continent in order to activate the border.

If there is a territory and a continent that both match the condition's name, the territory will be used as the condition

MrBenn wrote:Secondly, there needs to be some clarification about how conditional borders and conditional bonuses work...Imagine a French Revolution map, where there was a condition required to be able to attack the Bastille. Holding French Revoutionaries would be required to build up a bonus (imagine there's 7 key leaders, which are coded to give a bonus for holding 3 or more). The condition is coded that you need to hold the Revolutionary Leaders to attack the Bastille. Do you need to hold all 7 of them to open the attack option, or any three of them?

I did a similar question to lackattack, I'm waiting an answer since right now I don't know exactly how naming works with collections. I think I have the right answer but I prefer to ask and wait a reply from him. I'll reply asap.

I do NOT visit this site and I'm NOT Team CC anymore.All PMs are autobinned. If you need to contact me, you should already have a way to do it without using this site.Thanks to those who helped me through the years.

DiM wrote:lack successfully drove away a lot of mapmakers and it's time he did something to keep the ones he has and even bring some new ones. otherwise in a couple of years the only person in the foundry will be cairnswk.

at the first, I ask if anybody active in the site (blue guys, green guys, brown guys...) have any bonuses for time, energy spent here? they all are volunteers so I assume not. or at least get these people premium from CC?

the site needs also mapmakers who will do new, best maps and who will do maps with new XML updates. with current situation it is almost impossible to move any map forward in valid time. there are only 6 Carthographers. if I good understand their role they are here for comments on maps, for holdback graphics standards, for moving maps forward in Map Foundry, to be candid some of them are not much active. this is not blame, just constatation (everybody has real life and other thigs to do). but why is impossible to have more blue guys? I am not long time here, but I found some guys realy active in Foundry and helpfull (natty_dread, koontz, DiM, cairnswk, pamoa, Gilliping, Nola_Lifer - just some who become to my mind. sorry if I forgot anybody). why they can not be Carthographers? I agree with DiM - more people, more options, more help = shorter time to get updates.

conditional borders do not seem for me as any wonder. in XML Suggestions and Modifications II are more ideas for update and much of them are more important and interesting (look at spoiler).

MrBenn wrote:One of the reasons for starting a new thread, was that I spent a long time reading through the old ones, before forwarding the best of the suggestions to lackattack.

I'll copy those here for reference - none of these features are currently available, and there is no guarantee that any of these will be implemented. The example XML that has been cited is for reference only, and is only there to give an indication for possible implementation of the suggestion. It should not be confused with anything that is currently available.

MrBenn wrote:Conditional AutodeploysThe tag for autodeploy is currently a <bonus> tag within the <territory> collection. It would make more sense (and add more versatility) to add a conditional autodeploy to the <continent> collection.

Killer Neutral Tweak**NOTE: There is a known bug when players are eliminated by a killer neutral – it may be worth resolving this!

There have been requests to update the killer neutral code to allow for the neutral to respawn/reset to a different value.

Description: At the moment you can have <neutral>2</neutral>or<neutral killer="yes">5</neutral>

The Maze Craze map requires this to be tweaked slightly... could we change to?<neutral killer="5">2</neutral>So the neutral initialises with 2 but when captured it returns to 5.

Alternatively add a separate <neutral reset> tag, which could be used with the neutral killer, or proposed decay?

Decay to NeutralNegative autodeploy currently stops when a territory has a single army on it. With killer neutrals, a precedent has been set for territories to revert to neutral, and so it would be logical to extend the behaviour of decaying territories. However, in order to maintain backwards-compatibility, I would suggest the addition of a <decay> tag:

Conditional BordersPreviously (and frequently) referred to as Dynamic Borders, conditional borders have been mentioned a number of times under various guises. Their addition would open up Conquer Club to a whole new level of strategy, and further differentiate from the well-known Hasbro clone Previous suggestions have incorporated multiple map images, although this could initially be done within a single static image: a 'green key territory' could be used to open attack routes through 'green doors'... hold a ladder/rope to climb/descend... etc. etc. The below example is an idea of how it could be implemented - continents have been included for versatility.

Permanent VisiblesThere have been murmurs of approval for some sort of sentry/scout/lookout post territories for use in foggy games – territories that can see through the fog, without the ability to attack. Note: Visibles could theoretically be included in conditional borders (above)

Grouped Starting PositionsIf there was any way of assigning starting positions to teams, then that would be a very welcome addition. Rather than specifiying positions for particular players, is there any way that the starting positions could be grouped so that groups of positions will be given to the same team… The maximum number of teams in a game is 4 (4x doubles), so perhaps <group> tags could be added each position – and then each player will be assigned positions corresponding with their teammates – but you could keep it randomised so that team 1 would not necessarily be allocated group 1...If there are more teams than groups, then the start positions should be ignored. Equally, if there are less teams than groups, then each team could be given two positions (ie if there are 4 coded groups in a quads game, then Team 1 (red, green, blue, yellow) would receive two groups, with team 2 receiving the other.

Default Starting PositionIt would be nice if you could select a single starting position that would always be allocated – ie. In a Humans v Aliens map, with 7 different species of alien, you could ensure that somebody would represent Humans in every game…

Objectives TweakAmend objectives to include <continent> tags as well as <territory> tags. This would allow for more flexibility of objectives (such as “Control 60% of the board.”)

Starting Bonus Override/DelayOne of the things that we have become semi-obsessional over with maps, is to reduce the probability of the first player receiving (large) bonuses. In order to help mitigate the luck of the drop – and to try and add more balance to the game, it would be nice to be able to specify bonuses to be ignored during round 1 (or possibly to be reshuffled in the same way as when an objective is held on the drop)

Game Start MessageJust a simple xml tag to define a message posted to chat or the game log at the start of every game on that map.

Mostly for storytelling or "setting the mood"

Would need standards set - under x number of characters, yes/no to "map created by", "Beware the prison of Alcatraz for you shall never escape it" is a gameplay tip but in character so to speak where "Alcatraz has no outward borders" is just an explanation - which, if either is acceptable, etc etc etc.

DiM wrote:lack successfully drove away a lot of mapmakers and it's time he did something to keep the ones he has and even bring some new ones. otherwise in a couple of years the only person in the foundry will be cairnswk.

i don't have a problem with more australian maps

that wasn't even remotely the point i was trying to make.

it was more of a praise to cairnswk's resilience and an attempt to raise an alarm about how the foundry will become an empty place.

updates have been promised since 5 years ago and time after time the promises were broken.it took a strike of the CAs and the map makers for lack to quickly compile the code and give us conditional borders.some people's reaction is "praise the allmighty lack for giving us this update"my reaction is "wow, for so many years we were taken for granted and treated like obedient morons" lack just showed us that if he wants to, or if he's pressured to, then he can come up with updates in a reasonable amount of time. and the fact that he hasn't done it so far proves my previous point that we were taken for granted.if now things go back to the way they were before the strike then you can kiss goodbye any update in the next couple of years.

“In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric, second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light, and it was good. And on the seventh day he rested.”- Michio Kaku

The other thing that this updates demands is a change to the UI / Game selection options to avoid new/inexperienced players from inadvertently choosing/playing/being invited to more complicated games that deviate ever further from the game of risk that brought most of us here in the first place.

Somebody need to make inroads to map categorisation; I would gladly have headed that project up years ago if I were certain the results of my efforts were ever to have been implemented on the site.

PB: 2661 | He's blue...If he were green he would die | No mod would be stupid enough to do that

cairnswk wrote:Dim, i have to say that one should be grateful for all things small when they are given, instead of exepecting gigantic expressions of your idealism.

It is the small steps in life that create the journey, you should know that by now.

i've never been one to take small safe steps. i'm more a man of risky leaps. sometimes i fail, sometimes i win, but it's always exciting.

plus, i never said i'm not grateful for this update. it's a good update and i appreciate it but it's nowhere near what was promised all these years. and it would take several such updates for lack to catch up to everything that the foundry needs.

“In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric, second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light, and it was good. And on the seventh day he rested.”- Michio Kaku